1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a testing card, and more particularly to an integrated testing card.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid advance in science and technology, a large variety of electronic products have been developed in recent years. Take the personal digital assistant (PDA) for example. Within only a few years' time, its screen has been upgraded from mono-color screen to full-color screen; its size is further reduced while its functions are further augmented. Nowadays, the PDA has almost become an indispensable handy device to business people.
To satisfy its user's strong need for function augmentation, a PDA is normally equipped with at least one card interface for the augmentation of functions. For example, a personal computer memory card international association card (PCMCIA card) or a compact flash card (CF card) can be used as a memory card or an input/output card (I/O card) to enhance the function of a PDA. The abovementioned I/O card can be a modem card for instance.
From the manufacturer's point of view, a product must pass a series of inspections and tests to assure its quality before the product is allowed to leave the factory. The function test of the card interface is a very important test to be performed. Whatever card interface an electronic product may use, no matter it is a PCMCIA card, a CF card or other card interfaces, the card interface used must have memory support and I/O support functions to satisfy the user's diverse needs of augmentation. The most common way of testing is conducted by using ordinary memory card and I/O card respectively to test the memory function and the I/O function of a card interface. During the process of testing, the memory card will be inserted into the card slot for memory access test and will be removed from the card slot after memory test is finished; then the I/O card will be inserted into the card slot to test the input/output signal. Despite that the inspector has already tested the memory function and I/O function of a card interface using a memory card and an I/O card respectively, there are always some signals to be tested being left out. For example, if mode selection signal IOIS16, wait signals WAIT and interrupt signal INT are left out, the reliability of quality assurance will decrease. Besides, to test the interface memory and the interface I/O function of testing card, the inspector needs to use a memory card and an I/O card respectively, not only a longer duration of test is needed but also a smooth flow of testing process will be interrupted. For example, excluding the loading/unloading time, it still takes 7 seconds to test the ATA-Type memory card and 25 seconds to test the I/O card.